'Green' is a journey, not a destination

In its case for "Green Tech Innovation" some companies will promise more than they can deliver. There may be one semiconductor company that can deliver what they promise. Maybe.

In its case for "Green Tech Innovation" some companies will promise more than they can deliver. There may be one semiconductor company that can deliver what it promises. Maybe.

In a recent "Power Green" event in the Big Apple Samsung Semiconductor tried to convince its audience that the company has been in "green drive" mode for a while, and is making a difference in data centers.

Jim Elliott, Vice President Memory Marketing for Samsung Semiconductor, Inc., listed two reasons for why the current economic climate will drive the need for innovation and differentiation. and "Samsung is innovating and differentiating": data centers consume more power than all the TVs in the U.S.; 12 million servers are more thasn four years old and are runing inefficiently.

"New servers based on DDR3 memory chips can save energy, footprint and TCO," said Elliott. "At the same workload a new DDR3 server covers the task of 9 older servers with 61 percent reduced power, proviing 40,000KWh/yr energy saving, and savigs close to $10,000 yearly of operating expenses.

Elliott said that with 3 percent of U.S. electricity being used by data centers by 2011 using DDR3 and solid state drives should reduce that to 2.25 percent.

To that end, Samsung Electronic has developed what they claim is "the world's first 32 Gigabyte DDR3 module" for use in server systems. The new module operates at 1.35-volts which should go along way in support of the global trend to cut power usage in mass storage computing environments.

What's interesting about Samsung's approach is that while they hail their feats about every percentage point saved by customers using their parts, they concede that there are mitigating circumstances that will dominate user desisions going forward. "Products must perform, and green cannot supersede," said Elliott.

He listed customers' responses to Samsung's queries as to how they expect to go green.

When it comes to the required features, functions and performance respondents reiterate that product features and functions are of greatest importance; environmental consciousness and price come after product benefits.

Also, respondents say they are willing to budge somewhat on product cost if it means environmental consciousness (most specifically reduced energy consumption), but only to an extent. And finally the Total Cost of Ownership has to have a break-even point that is attainable quickly if not immediately.

The only anomoly: In Seattle, consumers were willing to pay up to 30 percent more, while other markets were willing to pay 10-20 percent more, for more efficient power.